Multichapter Sprace Fic
by angry-ace
Summary: Race is kidnapped and sorta gets held hostage by an evil farmer. Race sorta romances the farmer's son, Spot.
1. Chapter 1

Racetrack strolled down the streets of the city smoking his cigar. He took a puff of the cigar and stopped outside of Jacobi's deli. He began to relax but his ears itched with the sound of whispering. He approached the source of the noise, and creeped down an empty alley that led to it.

"... he squirmed like a worm and coughed all the while," Race heard one man say to another.

"And what happened next, Adam?" the other asked.

"Well it was hard for him to breathe with my boot at his throat, and he ended up dying from his crushed windpipe."

Race barely managed to stifle a gasp. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears. His heartbeat was frantic and he felt on the verge of tears. From what he understood of the men's conversation, one of them was a murderer. He knew being around them wasn't safe.

Race tried to flee from the alley but fell loudly into a stack of crates. He tried to stand but was trapped beneath the scattered boxes.

"What was that?" The men ran into the alley where Racetrack's attempts to be subtle were thwarted by the wooden crates.

"Well what do we have here?" Adam sneered. "What did you hear you little brat?"

"Nothing, nothing I swear," Race stammered.

"You sound awfully worried for someone who heard nothing young man." He picked Race up by the back of his shirt.

"I-I heard what you said but I'll never tell anyone I swear."

"You shouldn't have heard that." The man kicked Race, hard.

Race coughed helplessly. Before he could even register what was happening blows were raining upon him like a beating drum. His mangled cries barely even penetrated the ears of the men assaulting him because with each impact, the breath was stolen from within him. He couldn't stop the tears from running down his face, just as he couldn't prevent the sweat and blood from rolling down his cheeks like angry pinkish waves.

In the course of the attack Race had ended up on his belly. The blows had stopped and he was too shocked to continue his sobbing. How quickly his situation had turned foul?

"Check to see if he's dead," Adam said to the other man.

He crouched down next to Race and held his ear to his throat. Race held his breath and refused to blink. The man left his head there for so long that he felt as though his resolve would break, but at the last moment when his lungs burned something fierce, the man pulled away. The man nodded to his friend, but Race didn't see it. "We need to dump the body."

"Obviously."

"Where did you put the last one?"

"Threw it onto a farmer's wagon."

"And that worked?"

"I'm here aren't I?"

"I suppose you're right. Help me lift him, there's a cart we could use nearby."

"Hold on, put him in that," he pointed at a crate about the size of a small coffin. Race felt the men lifting him up by his armpits and feet. He willed himself not to react, especially when they dropped his body into the crate and his head banged against the box. They pushed the lid over him, and suddenly Race was ensconced in darkness.

He could feel the box lifted and feel himself being loaded onto a cart. Race felt the edges of his vision go black.

…

The next thing Racer was aware of was lying on straw. He felt it poking him and groaned. "Where am I?"

"You're in my barn. Tell me why you were on the side of the road."

Race was struck by the forwardness of the man's questions and he blinked. "I-I don't know."

"I bet you got piss drunk and that's why you don't know."

"That's not what happened."

The man slapped him. "Do not interrupt me boy," he growled. He yanked Race's uncalloused hands away from his face where the clutched the now red mark on his swollen cheek. "You're like a baby, you've probably never worked a day in your life." Race knew better than to correct him. "A young man like you needs to be put to work. Sleep well tonight, you'll be up early tomorrow to correct your discipline problem.

The man left him alone in the stinky barn and Race cried all the tears he had left. He cried for the home in Manhattan that he was torn from. He cried for the brutality he had faced at the hands of strangers. He cried for his dim and uncertain future that seemed to be a tunnel without a light at the end.


	2. Chapter 2

Race was gently roused by a firm hand jostling him benignly. "Hey wake up," they whispered. "Farmhand get up."

For a moment Race forgot where he was, not that he actually knew where he was, and reacted to the shaking like he was still with the boys in the lodging house. "Go away," he groaned, "let me sleep." Then he remembered.

At first Spot thought the new farmhand's reaction was funny but then he felt the boy tense up suddenly beneath his hand. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Race's mouth had gone dry, he was afraid to answer the boy's question honestly. "Why am I here?"

"What do you mean? What are you afraid of?"

Race couldn't reply to that, he couldn't believe that this stranger could possibly imagine him being at all okay with his situation.

Spot made another attempt at conversation after a moment of waiting for the strange boy to reply. "My father said he hired you to help with the harvest. You're a farm hand aren't you?"

Race was again afraid to reply. If he told the boy the truth, that he was on the farm against his will would he let him go? Probably not. He might not believe him and become angry because he'd called his father a liar. He might believe him but not care. Better to lie. Race nearly gagged on the word, "Yes."

"Great, it's time to get to work." Spot extended his hand to help the boy up. He pulled him to his feet but noticed his groan. "Are sure you're good for this job? It's gonna be very hot today."

"I um, I don't know."

"Yeah you don't look too good. I'm going to go talk to my father. Wait here."

"Wait," Race choked out all too late. The boy had already left. He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to calm his breathing. It didn't work.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'll deal with you later."

Spot took curt steps to his front door and pulled it open a little harder than he really needed to. He almost forgot to scrape the straw and dirt off his shoes, but at the last moment he remembered and prevented his scummy boots from tracking mud inside.

He quietly walked down the hallway to his father's bedroom. He hesitated before tapping on the door, knowing that his father was extremely volatile in the mornings. His father didn't answer. Spot took a deep breath before gently calling for him. "Father, may I please talk to you? Father are you awake?"

He heard a stirring beyond the door. "What do you want?" his father growled angrily.

"I wanna talk to you Dad. Could you please open the door so we can talk?" Spot didn't hear a reply he only heard the sound of movement inside the room. Almost two minutes later the door was finally opened by his father, who was still groggy.

"Spot what're you waking me for? You don't need me to do farmwork, Hell that's what I have you for, and that new farmhand in the barn. Did you talk to him?"

"Yes Father I did, that's actually want to talk to you about. He looks hurt. He's confused. Did he seem that way when you hired him?"

"He's probably faking so he can get pay for work he hasn't done, let me go talk to him."

"No Father," Spot grabbed his parent's arm, "I think that he's actually hurt." As soon as he'd said it Spot had realized his mistake.

"No?" He let the word trail on menacingly. "Did you just tell me no?"

"No Father, I just meant that-" Spot sputtered before his father clamped his meaty palm around his throat. He gave a squeeze but didn't tighten, he was just letting Spot know that he was out of line. "I'm sorry Dad."

"Good." Spot's father pushed him into the wall. "I'll deal with you later. Go get to work, being your father is a thankless job."

Spot waited for his father to stomp down the hallway and slam the front door before releasing the breath he had been holding in. He's followed his father's instructions a tad less carefully than he should have and went to the tobacco field only as long as it took til he could be certain that his father had gone into the barn, then he quietly crept up to it's outside.

He heard his father yelling and screams that must be coming from the farmhand. He could imagine the scene inside the barn. Spot was no stranger to his father's temper, his rage was familiar to Spot, just as it was supposed to be. Spot believed that when his father felt angry enough to strike him it was his own fault but he didn't know how to feel about his father hitting someone else. The boy had seemed nice enough, he was so scared. Spot couldn't imagine what he'd done wrong. He almost didn't interfere, he wasn't sure he was ready to open that door, but the terrified wailing became too much for Spot's compassionate heart to bear and he ripped the door open.

Within was a scene brutal enough to break Spot's compassionate heart. His father was hitting the boy in the back over and over with Spot's mother's cane, the one she'd used before she had died. His father didn't even here him come in. "Father, stop!" he yelled desperately. Spot couldn't process his father doing something to terrible, he'd never done anything so cruel to Spot, he figured that his status as his son must have been protecting him.

His father gave no signs of concluding his assault so Spot sprinted across the room and pulled the cane out of his father's hands. The boy just stood there with strong shivers rolling through his crying body, still shocked by the trashing he'd received. Spot's father turned to face Spot, looking at him like he was an insect. "Father what have you done?" Spot was horrified.

"I was teaching this no-good drifter a lesson on laziness. Why would _you_ stop me?"

Spot barely managed to speak, "You're hurting him."

"That's the point Spot, you continue. He'll learn to work for us."

"No father. I won't do that to somebody."

"Then let me finish the job, give me the cane," his father menaced him.

"No father." Spot had started to cry. His father slapped him.

"You're soft like a baby, you're just like your mother. He pulled the cane out of Spot's loose fingers. He raised it to give Race another smack but at seeing the stranger cringe in fear Spot grabbed it again. Spot didn't stop to think of what to do with the tool turned weapon, he railed it against his father's head. The man stumbled backwards. "Who the fuck do you think you are? I'm your father you will never disobey me," he screamed while clutching his face.

This time Spot's father ripped the cane from his son's hands and jabbed him in the sternum. Spot backed up, but his father smacked his knees and knocked him down. He threw the cane down and got on top of his son, choking the life right out of him. Spot was seeing black dots dancing through his vision; he was certain that he would die.

Spot did not die. Though he could not see it, Race had moved from his huddle against the wall, picked up the cane, and hit Spot's father over the head with it, not once but many times. The third strike knocked him off his son. The fourth through seventh the man simply struggled on the ground. He lunged at Race after the eight and even managed to yank the cane but not take it. The ninth and tenth sent him back to the floor. Spot tried to pull him back on eleven. By twelve Spot's father was already death.

Race was sobbing and so was Spot. They left the barn together after many minutes. The whole world had changed for each one.


End file.
